PG&E to deliver gas line safety records to Calif.

The Associated Press

A utility company under fire for a deadly natural gas explosion near San Francisco was poised Tuesday to deliver reams of records to California regulators, just weeks after it was accused of misplacing hundreds of key safety documents.

The state public utilities commission could order Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to conduct expensive and time-consuming tests if the utility cannot prove it set safe pressure levels for its transmission lines.

Regulators directed PG&E and other California utilities to produce the paperwork by Tuesday, following the revelation that the company's records about the ruptured San Bruno line were wrong.

The Sept. 9 blast sparked a massive fireball that killed eight people and destroyed three dozen homes.

California Public Utilities Commission rules require pipeline operators to keep up-to-date records about pressure tests and to document any leaks to ensure the pipes don't pose any risk to surrounding communities.

For the past two weeks, PG&E employees have been sorting through mountains of boxes of paper records inside a hulking concert venue the company rented for the job.

The company's engineers, estimators, mappers, information technology specialists and managers - as well as a number of outside contractors - have gone through more than 1.25 million individual gas transmission records hauled out from branch offices and storage facilities, PG&E spokesman Joe Molica said.

"We have been working around the clock in 24/7 shifts utilizing hundreds of people to confirm the quality of our data," Molica said.